Power and data may be provided from one electronic device to another over cables that may include one or more wire conductors, fiber optic cables, or other conductors. Connector inserts may be located at each end of these cables and may be inserted into connector receptacles in the communicating or power transferring electronic devices.
These connector receptacles may be assembled in different ways and the electronic devices housing them may also be assembled in different ways. For example, some connector receptacles may be assembled along with their electronic devices where portions of the connector receptacles may be formed of portions of the electronic devices. Portions of housings of some connector receptacles may be formed using portions of device enclosures for the electronic devices. Portions of interconnect may be shared between a connector and other circuits or components in the electronic devices. Such sharing may provide connector receptacles having specific or improved capabilities. A downside of this approach may be that the assembly process for the electronic device may be relatively complicated.
Other connector receptacles may have a modular form. Modular connector receptacles may enable the use of pick-and-place and other surface-mount technology (SMT) processes used in the assembly of electronic devices. A downside of this approach has been that very high-performance modular connector receptacles have not been available. For example, signal quality may be compromised when using a conventional modular connector receptacle in an electronic device.
Also, connector inserts may be inserted into these connector receptacles many times over the lifetime of the electronic device. Accordingly, it may be desirable that these connector receptacles be reliable and not quickly wear out.
Thus, what is needed are connector receptacles that may be modular, may be reliable and durable, and may provide a high signal quality.